While in Sydney, I stayed at Mad Monkey in King’s Cross on Bayswater Street. There are maybe five Mad Monkeys in the same area. I liked this hostel a lot. I consider it a more classic hostel stay, nothing too fancy, but they did have a cool basement hangout room with a big TV. I spent a lot of time just chilling there, usually hungover. There was also a rooftop, which I didn’t take advantage of. I didn’t spend too much time in the hostel, as I was out and about.
Barrel One Coffee Roasters was a delightful coffee shop I frequented. They had the best filter coffee I’ve seen. Usually, batch-brewed coffee is pretty poor, but somehow they got theirs to be quality. I was there almost every day.
I met my aunt Wendy’s childhood friend, Marcia, and her husband Andrew. We had a grand old time. We went to the rooftop at Glenmore Hotel and then to Uncle Ming’s cocktail bar. They drank me under the table. That was to be expected, as Wendy and Tim do the same thing to me when I hang out with them. I successfully tried getting some funny growing-up stories about Wendy from Marcia, which I won’t repeat here.
A funny thing I learned is that a lot of bars have the word “hotel” in their name because of an old law that said bars must have places for people to sleep for alcohol to be served. Not a bad idea!
I left them to meet Konnen, a friend of mine who lives in Sydney and whom I met last year at a hostel in Amsterdam. We hit a couple of bars in the area and had a big night. Our final destination was Big Poppa’s, an Italian fine dining restaurant with a club in the basement. We had a good time dancing in this club, and I met the love of my life there (I always do). We didn’t actually talk to each other and I don’t know her name, but she had good dance moves.
☕️
